Author Description

This compelling volume focuses on what it is like to be young in the rapidly changing, enormously diverse world region that is early 21st century Europe. Designed for a North American readership interested in youth and young adulthood, The Modernization of Youth Transitions in Europe provides a rich fund of theoretical insight and empirical evidence about the implications of contemporary modernization processes for young people living, learning, and working across Europe. Chapters have been specially written for this volume by well-known youth sociologists; they cover a wide range of themes against a shared background of the reshaping of the life course and its constituent phases toward greater openness and contigency. New modes of learning accompany complex routes into employment and career under rapidly changing labor market conditions and occupational profiles, while at the same time new family and lifestyle forms are developing alongside greater intergenerational responsibilities in the face of the retreat of the modern welfare state. The complex patterns of change for today's young Europeans are set into a broader framework that analyzes the emergence and character of European youth research and youth policy in recent years. Reading this collection will provide scholars and practitioners with not only relevant and up-to-the-minute information about youth in Europe, but also a basis for reflecting on the similarities with and differences from today's North American youth. This is the 113th volume of the quarterly journal, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. Click here to see the entire listing of issues for New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development.